West Ham’s board met with Nuno Espírito Santo yesterday, as widely reported, in a post-relegation crisis meeting to determine the Portuguese head coach’s future.
Hammers fans themselves appear broadly split down the middle over Nuno’s West Ham future: Many deeply upset by his failure to keep a talented team in the Premier League whilst others take a more pragmatic view, suggesting that, whatever his shortcomings, Nuno Espírito Santo may be far more suitable than the other candidates named as possible successors and that the Hammers should stick with ‘the devil they know’.
West Ham’s board split over first big decision of the Championship era
It appears that the board is similarly struggling with two disparate elements: According to @jacobsteinberg, – football reporter for The Guardian – there’s division in the boardroom over the ‘back him or sack him’ decision:
“A bit of a shift in the mood overnight, with some on West Ham’s board wanting Nuno to stay. Situation still to be resolved in next day or two.”
Which does not bode well for a decisive, new-broom approach to life in the Championship. It could of course merely be the traditional Sullivan smokescreen whilst he gets his replacement candidate lined up before pulling the trigger on Nuno’s managerial era.
As we aren’t going to have much money to spend we need a manager who can develop what we have, in particular the young players. Nuno might be that, and of so the cost of his (reduced) package might be worthwhile. It is said we as a club don’t have a strategy. Perhaps a decent feeder system might be a part of that? After all with so much young talent not getting a chance in the game because clubs focus so much on transfers it might have some legs. If we could develop three or four of our existing youngsters into Championship regulars and have two become future premiership players we’d be making some progress.
This board couldn’t take a decision to sit in a bucket of water if their backsides were on fire! That’s why we’re in this mess.
Too many cooks. The club is paralysed.
Also works with crooks.
Who knows what’s round the corner . In my opinion Parker or O’Neil are NOT the way to go. Nuno , if he wants to stay or identify an up and coming younger manager and give him a chance. However with our basket case of an owner , logic may not rule here . Been supporting the club for over 65 years & the older I get the worse we seem to handle things 🤷♂️⚒⚒ COYI
This encapsulates exactly the problem with this club. Too many shareholders, too many opinions, no united goal or ethos running through the club at any level, just Chaos!
We need to keep him. Of course he made mistakes, they all do. If we were going out to get an up and coming manager to build with them great, but we won’t. The alternatives are the same uninspiring free agents with records of failing elsewhere, some of whom happen to have played for us before. I think Nuno made the best out of what he had. Give him a chance, if he wants it, to try and get them up.
What the club needs is for a manager any manager to have some time to let the players go who want to leave, identify replacements that will get us promoted at the first time of asking. This is not an easy task, one due to how competitive the league is but two as the Chairman is a control freak with no understanding of running a football club. Until he goes we will always be treading water.
I am 59 and have seen us relegated and bounce back but in that time have witnessed the sublime to the ridiculous in entertaining football. If Sullivans stays I firmly believe he will run this club into the ground and we could end up in League 1 bankrupt and being docked points for not following the financial rules. This is a scary time being a Hammer but hopefully someone with a brain buys out Sullivans shares and gets us back on the road.